Roy Bendy from Eclipse Car Sales in response to Pete Avey

When this negative review popped up I'm really sad to say that I wasn't exactly surprised and I'll explain why in a moment but firstly for those of you that don't know me let me give you so background history that sets the scene as to who I am and what I stand for. My name is Roy and im the managing director of Eclipse Car Sales Ltd. We've been successfully trading for 25 years selling sports and prestige cars with once focus in mind and you'd be surprised to know it's not selling cars but a long forgotten thing called......service. Yes that's right good old fashioned service. I've always taken the approach that if you offer great service and you treat people fairly then they buy the car because they want to. They leave happy, tell friends and family about their experience and they come along for some of the same. I believe it is for this reason that today we have so many loyal and returning customers and the reason that even through tougher times we have survived and even grown. We also do things differently to many dealers. For example the law requires that a dealership offer a 3 month warranty but this isn't good enough for me or my customers in my view so I give a years warranty with every car. Not at an exceptionally good price but free as part of the ongoing commitment to service. We really do mean it when we say that we care. Things can go wrong with used cars and its sometimes impossible to tell what the future may bring so we try to be ready to help with a good warranty as backup and courtesy cars on standby, just in case something outside of everybody's control happens. So why is Peter Avey so unhappy? Truly to this point I still do not know! It's true that he and his wife purchased a beautiful £24000 car from me. It's a 2010 model with nearly 80k on the clock but at nearly one third of its original value represents a lot of car compared to its original value. However it is a highly mechanically and electrically advanced piece of kit and so things could happen along the way even though it was provided with full main dealer service history. However we were ready for any problem with the warranty. Remember 12 mths free! The car was collected on the 6th of June and was driven for 20 days covering 1605 miles before developing a fault on the motorway which caused a lack of power and an engine knocking noise. Peter brought the car straight in where I examined the car straight away along with a mechanic that we had onsite while Peter was offered a drink. The diagnosis was a best guess at that point but it was decided that further investigation was urgently required. We put Peter straight into a courtesy car and he left with the promise of a call when we had further information. At this point I admit the courtesy car wasn't a Rolls Royce but an older BMW. However a perfectly reasonable car in order to get around whilst we got to work to solve the problem. We arranged a trailor to take the car to our turbo specialist for investigation which happened the next day and it was found that the turbos were ok. We started with the turbo inspection as this was the area the noise was coming from and after 25 years experience one of the most likely causes. By this point Peter was pushing for answers on what was happening with his car. My staff explained that it was being investigated and we would respond as soon as we had information to respond with. We use 3 garages as we are a large dealership with nearly 100 cars in stock and each of our regular garages was booking 1.5 to two weeks ahead so I took the decision to move the car to a secure location where we also store Classic and rare cars. A location where we also have workshop facilities but which is not open to the public for security and insurance purposes. This was deemed by me to be the fastest possible way of diagnosing and fixing Peters car. Over the next couple of days Peter started to get more anxious about his car and also complained about the courtesy car saying he had important meeting and the car wasn't sufficiently pleasing for such meeting. I agreed and took a better car out of stock, paying separately for tax and insurance, after all I wanted to offer excellent service and so I took the view this was the right thing to do. Another day passed and after some extensive diagnostics its was discovered that a rocker arm had failed and caused the fault. Peter was informed and at this point asked for a further upgrade to the courtesy car as the second one he had be given still wasn't special enough. The work was going to take approx 4 further days because we were waiting for parts so I agreed to insure and tax a 2008 M Sport BMW and Peter picked this up on the Saturday. To this point he had emailed at least twice per day and been replied to and also called the office or been called on many occassions. It's was clear that Peter was unhappy with the situation and of course so we're we. Nobody likes a car that's broken and we were doing everything we could as quickly as possible to make the experience as stress free as possible. Unbelievably 1.2 hours after leaving the office happy in his M sport BMW courtesy car Peter became unreasonable. He demanded to know where his car was even though I told him the reasons why I couldn't tell him and he demanded a full refund even though we were fixing the car and he had another BMW, his third courtesy car. The relationship then broke down with Peter even threatening to call the police and report that I had stolen his vehicle. I still to this point don't understand his reasoning for this but it was at this point that I sought legal advice as clearly the situation was getting out of hand. I can honestly say that in 25 years in business I have never had a customer so disappointed that we were trying to fix their car as quickly as possible for free whilst loaning them a beautiful M Sport BMW. I have unfortunately realised that Peter must feel that he has made a mistake in buying a new car and has used the fault that occurred as a means to try and reverse the deal. The law is extremely clear in that the dealer must prove that the car was of satisfactory quality on the day it is handed over to the customer. This is why we go to great efforts to do a proper pre delivery inspection and in Peters case also supply a brand new MOT. We don't want there to be any problems and go to great lengths to try and ensure that a car is trouble free for life but nobody can give this guarantee, not even with a brand new car. The law exists to protect consumers from unsatisfactory cars and also to protect legitimate dealers selling good cars to customers that latter think they can have a full refund if something goes wrong. If this were not the case we'd all be driving Ferraris for free and breaking them on the last day then getting refunded. Peters car was of satisfactory quality when it left us. By his own omission a problem occurred 20 days later and we got to work fixing it but due to his unreasonable behaviour we took the decision along with the finance company to unwind the deal less a fair usage charge. To date we have not heard from Peter, the only correspondence being a rude email to our solicitor. I can only end by saying how sorry I am that Peter feels this way. I have done absolutely everything humanly possible to help and kept him informed throughout and find his actions totally unprofessional. To Mrs Avey I'd like to say good luck with the birth and may I wish you all the very best for the future. Roy Bendy Managing Director Eclipse Car Sales Ltd